Pages

May 1, 2012

Book Review–The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood

the-couriers-new-bicycle
The Courier’s New Bicycle is Kim Westwood’s second novel and its nice and compact at 327 pages. Playing wonderfully to my own biases and beliefs, Westwood has taken some of my dark fears and made a scary reality of them.

The World
The world of The Courier’s New Bicycle  is a near future Melbourne.  Australia is in the midst of a fertility crises caused by a compromised H1N1 vaccine. The population is largely infertile and while several fertility companies sprang up to deal with the crisis, a swing in power to the religious right sees these companies outlawed. The resultant Australian cultural landscape is a dominionist’s wet dream.

With power In the grip of religious fanatics anything outside of very hetero normative ideals of gender are held in contempt.  Hessian frocked prayer groups wander the streets laying on hands and Neighbourly Watch lurks like a synthesis between the Gestapo and a Christian version of the Mutaween. 

Our Protagonist
The Courier’s New Bicycle features a “gender transgressive” protagonist, Salisbury Forth. Sal has achieved a comfortable( for Sal)  gender identity that sits between male and female.

Sal is a courier for an ethical hormone supplier and is good at the job, genetically gifted with a body for it.  Sal becomes a reluctant detective when unknown parties target the boss’ business. When Sal’s friend Albee is injected with kit laced with pesticides, the business war becomes personal. 

Is it a dystopia?
I’m not sure.  I find it an all too plausible reality, one that only requires a few changes to get to it from present day Australia.  Westwood has done an excellent job of extending current circumstances - political, social, environmental and religious. She tweaks recognisable institutions and extrapolates current Australian culture with skill.

The conservative party( both religiously and politically) Nation First is eerily close to a combination of Family First and One Nation. The contempt in which “gender transgessives” are held is not too different from conservative values held by the majority of the Australian population – only in The Courier’s New Bicycle hatred of “The Other” is given the imprimatur of both state and religion.

On Gender
The novel has an androgynous protagonist and is at least in part an exploration of the life and experiences of ‘The Other’.  Whether ‘The Other’ be the transgendered, the animal activist, the immigrant or the socially undesirable street racers. 

Now I don’t know if it’s the fact that I have been fortunate enough to listen to quality gender discussions and that I am comfortable in my gender/sexuality, but I didn’t find that exploration at all uncomfortable or confronting.

The treatment of said characters by the over zealous religious society inflamed my internal sense of social justice, but the treatment itself is sadly all too close to what ‘The Other’ experience in the here and now.  For a reader who has lived a very sheltered life their response will no doubt be different.
For me, I am just happy to have a cracking good story, whose protagonist and supporting characters are drawn from genderqueer and other diverse communities.

What impressed me.
There’s a tangibility to Westwood’s world building.  I don’t know Melbourne all that well but it feels to me that she’s captured the essence of the city and then cloaked it in this oppressive tension. The spectre of Neighbourly Watch always in the background and the fact that Sal’s entire life is pretty much illegal.

Honestly The Courier’s New Bicycle is a great read, an Australian speculative fiction, novel with elements of crime drama thrown in. When people think speculative fiction is just shooting rockets at Jupiter or dog fights in space, press this into their hand.

A beautiful sketch of darkly shaded future that I hope never comes to pass.


awwc2012This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012.  Please check out this page for more great writing from Australian women.



Did you enjoy this review? Would you like to read more? You can subscribe to the blog through a reader,by Email or Follow me on twitter.

Comments (16)

Loading... Logging you in...
  • Logged in as
Thanks for sharing this review Sean - I have looked sideways at this book a few times but not been sure about it, your ideas make it more tempting.
My recent post Review: Morgan’s Law by Karly Lane
3 replies · active 671 weeks ago
Can you pin down what's stopped you picking it up? I might be able to persuade you further :)
It's simply a matter of genre Sean. I've never been overly keen on Science Fiction with its glimpses into a often bleak future. however I love crime so if that element is strong enough in this I could be persuaded.
My recent post Review: Morgan’s Law by Karly Lane
I think you will find it to your liking, the sci-fiction is secondary to the mystery element
I haven't read Daughters of Moab, but have heard that the writing in Courier's is more broadly approachable/mainstream?. I have read one of Westwood's short stories before, that I think is similar to the writing in Moab. I like both.

In Courier's the larger society is bigoted, but then Sal operates almost exclusively within the "gender transgressive" community.
<div id="idc-comment-msg-div-353101616" class="idc-message"><a class="idc-close" title="Click to Close Message" href="javascript: IDC.ui.close_message(353101616)"><span>Close Message</span> Comment posted. <p class="idc-nomargin"><a class="idc-share-facebook" target="_new" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbookonaut.blogspot.com.au%2F2012%2F05%2Fbook-reviewthe-couriers-new-bicycle-by.html#IDComment353101616&t=I%20just%20commented%20on%20Adventures%20of%20a%20Bookonaut%3A%20Book%20Review%E2%80%93The%20Courier%E2%80%99s%20New%20Bicycle%20by%20Kim%20Westwood" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="idc-share-inner"><span>Share on Facebook</span></span> or <a href="javascript: IDC.ui.close_message(353101616)">Close Message Interesting review. Even if the society Westwood depicts is not wholly dystopian, from the point of view of her central characters, it certainly fits the bill.
2 replies · active 671 weeks ago
I see what you are saying, but could you then argue that any genderqueer novel written today would be dystopian, because there's not a huge jump from how transgendered people are treated today to how they are treated in the novel.
To be clear I think we agree, it can wear the mantle of dystopia :D
True. Perhaps 'dystopian' is in the eye of the beholder. If, for example, you had a version of The Hunger Games written from the point of view of a privileged resident of the Capitol, would is still be dystopian? I see a lot of debate around the traps on what constitutes dystopian fiction and i find it a really interesting subject.
My recent post Reading Renaissance
3 replies · active 671 weeks ago
Have you read Atwood's latest non-fiction where she discusses Ustopias? Might be to your liking, I think you can get the ebook version.
I haven't read that, sounds up my alley, thanks for the recommendation.
My recent post Q & A with Author Amanda Curtin
I did a review of it here http://bookonaut.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/book-rev...
its quite wide ranging a collection of essays really.
I really enjoyed this novel as well - great to see it nominated for a Ditmar. Here's hoping it finds more of an audience outside of Australia.

-m

My recent post Ishtar by Kaaron Warren, Deborah Biancotti and Cat Sparks
1 reply · active 671 weeks ago
I think it is. Was mentioned on the Outer Alliance podcast recently
Game of thrones's avatar

Game of thrones · 348 weeks ago

amazing

Post a new comment

Comments by